Scientific Value Relativism

Abstract

Relativism stresses that value judgements are statements about meaning and not about facts, about “ought” and not about “is”. Professor Arnold Brecht explained and substantiated the existence of a link between “is” and “ought”, which does not have a logical character, but does indeed have a “factual” one; a link that, being so evident and intersubjectively transmissible, makes doctrine based on logical separation less important. Suffice it to observe this factual link in a sufficient number of individual cases to arrive inductively at the conclusion of its universal presence with the same certainty or uncertainty as any other inductive conclusion. This paper studies the considerations made by Brecht in the first half of the twentieth century on universal elements that do not derive from arbitrary decisions on justice, but can stem from the necessary feelings inherent to human beings. Confirming this is within the bounds of scientific research. And if these elements are considered as a whole and combined with the two methods proposed by the relativists—clarifying the meaning of the proposed interpretations and analysing their implications—the demonstrable elements obtained are of considerable worth.